Recent reviews by Wulfyn

This is an excellent addition to the Warhammer series, seamlessly blending the best aspects of Total War and the Warhammer universe. It was great to play as the High Elves - the faction I played as a kid - which had some excellent moments of nostalgia. The army and the advancements feel right, and that I think is the highest compliment you can give to something which seeks to recreate the background of another series. It holds all the best aspects of the first Total Warhammer, and improves in many areas - for example there was no longer the feeling that I was just marching around trying to hunt down enemy armies that just kept running away and were impossible to catch unless you applied the mod.

The single player High Elf campaign is also srongly done, although not without errors I feel as a Warhammer nerd. The setting of fighting over the vortex was excellent and gave a real sense of impending doom as you raced towards completing the ritual. The choice of rival factions of High Elves, Dark Elves, Lizardmen, and Skaven also felt extremely natural - as the more magically curious races these are the 4 that I would have picked (in the absence of chaos itself). The ability to interfere with each other was a great idea too, that allowed you to feel that you were part of a wider world - and indeed creating so much more of the world was great for that too.

The areas where I was not so keen were the diplomacy aspects. Frankly having other High Elf factions hating you, and in one case for me even declaring war, felt wrong. These are not the High Elves of the warhammer universe, especially when the vortex is such an integral part of all of their lives. The one redeeming feature of that war for me as a player was at least it was Caledor that declared it, and they've always been a bit weird. The influence screen does help a lot with this but it is not perfect as it relies on you spamming it quite early at the cost of more useful things such as better characters. And it was also still strange to see Avelorn conquer Saphery and Yvresse conquer Cothique.

Similarly there were too many diplomacy options the other way, between races that hated each other. It was pretty strange that the Skaven Clan Pestilens and Mors were so keen to sign a peace treaty with me. In fact it felt weird that the Skaven had any diplomacy options at all. But the real proverbial biscuit was how a couple of the Dark Elf factions were so willing to be at peace with me. There should be maximum aversion and instant war at all times between High Elves and Dark Elves. This is when the game was at it's worse for me as a Warhammer fan, and felt too much like they were trying to give a more generic Total War experience. The treasure hunting also felt a little too powerful, with a single Lord able to boost your income by thousands each turn or give you huge benefits to combat.

But these were small elements in an otherwise fantastic game. It's a whole new level to your castle siege strategy when Phase 1 is march your spearment to the base of the walls ready to deploy ladders, and Phase 2 is landing your dragons on the defending enemies to distract them and allow your troops in with ease. Dragons, Phoenix, Mages - it all just felt right and played magnificently. Another great game in the series, and personally (due not wholly to my High Elf bias) my favourite one yet (and I've been playing since Shogun).

You won't regret this purchase.

Quite simply incredible. I thought it would just be a fun puzzle game but it was so much more. A beautifully crafted story that is fully embedded in the game you play and doesn't feel like something tacked on at the end. I don't want to say anymore for fear of spoiling anything. It's just one of those games that has to be played. If you ever want to talk about games being taken as seriously as other art forms then this is the example to use.

If this game is on sale for under $10 then sure pick it up because it's not a terrible game. It is a short game (completed in 4 hours) and that's not a bad thing if it is a great experience. But overall it wasn't. The game does have some great parts in it, and without spoiling it I would say that the suspense it parts definitely escalates superbly. The voice acting and scripting is some of the best I have encountered in any game, and the mechanics suit it perfectly. Where it is let down is in 3 areas. Firstly the game is far too linear - it forces you from section to section in a way that does not feel realistic and is immersion breaking. In some places you can climb up rocks twice your height and in other places you can't even get up something higher than your knee. For an exploration game this breaks immersion. Secondly whilst you have to traverse this linear path the other characters are seemingly unimpeded. Again this breaks immersion. However most importantly the game plays like a King novel. The start is atmospheric. The middle is incredibly suspenseful. But the end just feels flat and rushed. You don't discover or deduct what has happened, it is literally put on a cassette taped to a rock with your name on it. It is not like the ending is even bad - it will leave you with a strong emotional feeling one way or the other, it's just getting there is like when a TV show has 3 minutes left to wrap up and you are then just told everything in a dialogue. Very unsatisfying, and for a game primarily about the story a sadly unforgivable mistake.